No. 7 Mohave Accelerated drove eight hours to Tucson to take on No. 4 Desert Christian and the Patriots will make the long drive back home knowing a 30-8 win keeps the team securely in a playoff run for one of the eight at-large berths available at a minimum. The Eagles will learn how far they will slip in the rankings come Tuesday afternoon when the new set of ranking are released but it shouldn’t be too far.

Desert Christian (4-2) is an independent team so the pathway to one of the 12 playoff spots is limited to a finish in the top 12 with two more games left in the regular season. Mohave Accelerated (6-1) is still in the hunt for the automatic berth from the 1A West Region but No. 3 Bagdad (6-1) and No. 11 Salome (4-3) are ahead of the team in the standings with Salome defeating Mohave Accelerated 24-18 in the third week of the season. Salome host Bagdad next week.

Two playoff spots in the 1A Conference were claimed Friday night with No. 1 Hayden (7-0) claiming the 1A East Region back on Sept. 20 with a 57-14 victory over No. 5 Lincoln Prep and No. 6 St. David (6-1) claimed the 1A South Region with a 49-0 win over No. 17 San Manuel Friday night. The 1A North and 1A West regions are still up for grabs with the first round of the state playoffs slated for Friday, Oct. 25. The top four teams ill earn a bye in the first round.

For Mohave Accelerated, Rylan Cranbhul has been the main quarterback over the last four games and he threw for 134 yards against Desert Christian starting with a 32-yard strike to Owen Honegger to put the Patriots up 8-0 with 1:59 left in the first quarter. The scoring drive came off of an interception by Honegger. The Patriots were on the verge of scoring again in the final two minutes of the first half but Desert Christian QB/DB Cooper Payne came up with a strip on his own three for what looked like a sure rushing TD for the Patriots and he returned the strip 97 yards to tie the game up 8-8 with 32 seconds left in the half.

“We coaches were talking about the long trip,” Mohave Accelerated head coach Adam Gibson said. “We did our job, but we weren't playing to our full potential in the first half, and then after we kind of got our legs under us, I think we did really well.”

Cranbhul hit Honegger again from 19 yards to open the second half and then Ian David made it 22-8 a few minutes later on an 8-yard run. David scored again with 3:26 left for the 30-8 win. David rushed for 106 yards on 13 carries, Ivan Sia added 60 yards rushing on nine carries. Kaiden Slinger had 62 yards receiving and Honegger had 51.

“Cranbhul came in around the fourth game of the year, and he's developing nicely,” Gibson added. “He's still young, he still makes some mistakes, but I think right now, all money is on him, and he's going to rise up.:

For Desert Christian, Cooper was limited to 107 yards of total offense to go with his 97-yard fumble return. Tony Barcelo added 39 yards rushing.

“I like that we came out aggressive,” Desert Christian head coach Jason McKibben said. “I liked how our defense looked in the first three quarters. There's a lot of stuff I liked. I liked I liked that we didn't quit. I liked that we didn't give up. We get to leave this game with our heads up.”

Desert Christian will host No. 18 Baboquivari (1-6) next Friday and Mohave Accelerated will host No. 8 El Capitan (4-2) the same night.

 

THE SCORES